Post by Jon on Feb 21, 2013 22:43:07 GMT

I was there - but unfortunately hardly anyone else was - to see Bruce's TUFC debut.

This match saw us lop a massive 354 off our lowest ever Plainmoor League attendance set six months earlier against Hartlepool. A resounding response to Alan Mers0n's challenge that "it's now up to the South Devon public to prove that they really will respond to a star".

The directors who had emptied their piggy banks to bring in a crowd pleaser must have wondered why they bothered. Three and a bit years later both Bruce and the board were to throw in the towel.

In fairness to the South Devon public, we had been shockingly awful in losing 2-0 at home to Darlington the previous Saturday, it was Bonfire Night and it was absolutely freezing. We were back up to a whopping 1,775 for the next home game.

I don't know who was responsible for the programme, but there is some Luscombesque work on the Ralph Birkett piece. He wasn't born in Ashford Middlesex, he was born in Belmont Road Torquay and not in 1912 but in 1913.

Post by stuartB on Feb 21, 2013 23:13:12 GMT

I was there - but unfortunately hardly anyone else was - to see Bruce's TUFC debut.

This match saw us lop a massive 354 off our lowest ever Plainmoor League attendance set six months earlier against Hartlepool. A resounding response to Alan Mers0n's challenge that "it's now up to the South Devon public to prove that they really will respond to a star".

The directors who had emptied their piggy banks to bring in a crowd pleaser must have wondered why they bothered. Three and a bit years later both Bruce and the board were to throw in the towel.

In fairness to the South Devon public, we had been shockingly awful in losing 2-0 at home to Darlington the previous Saturday, it was Bonfire Night and it was absolutely freezing. We were back up to a whopping 1,775 for the next home game.

I don't know who was responsible for the programme, but there is some Luscombesque work on the Ralph Birkett piece. He wasn't born in Ashford Middlesex, he was born in Belmont Road Torquay and not in 1912 but in 1913.

Post by gullone on Feb 22, 2013 16:16:04 GMT

1,227 mate. So only 1,225 to go. We could probably name half of them between us.

And i think from that day onwards everytime we had a freekick in the opponents half the cry of RIOCH RIOCH would go up from the popside demanding he took it. It was certainly the first time i had witnessed the incredible power in his shot from barely a run up.